After seeing lukewarm results in June, retailers can take heart: Back-to-school spending is headed back to pre-recession levels. But it’s too early to celebrate since consumers still feel pressured financially and remain very cautious about spending in general.
A new survey from the National Retail Federation found American households will spend $55.1 billion shopping for back-to-school needs this year, including $21.4 billion for children in kindergarten through high school and $33.8 billion on college students.
Parents of school-age children will shell out $606.40 per household, an increase over the $548.72 per household spent last year and the $594.24 in 2008, shortly before the stock market freefall brought consumer spending to a halt. It’s even better than the $563.49 spent in 2007, before the recession took hold.
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